


Unrepentant

by gonergone



Category: Wonder Boys - All Media Types
Genre: College, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 12:50:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonergone/pseuds/gonergone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terry has four goals in life: get high, get laid, graduate from college and become the next Max Perkins.  Eventually he'll get to all of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unrepentant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kabal42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kabal42/gifts).



> Thanks to thegirlwiththemouseyhair for the beta.

Terry had been watching the blond for almost an hour. He knew it was almost an hour because Tripp had started making _can-we-go-yet-Crabs_ noises about twenty minutes ago, which Terry ignored. The blond, he was convinced, was watching him, too, but he could never quite catch him at it. It was almost charming, Terry thought, that anyone could pretend to ignore _him_. Tripp was not quite as convinced. 

"Why don't you just ask him if he wants to fuck? I thought that was your signature line."

Terry ignored the sarcasm. "This requires a little more delicacy," he told him, watching the blond's throat work as he gulped a beer.

"I didn't realize you were capable of delicacy," Tripp snorted. 

"I'm capable of many things," Terry told him haughtily. 

"That may be true, but you can't turn a straight man gay, and he's definitely straight, Crabs."

"I'm not trying to make him gay, I'm just trying to get him into bed. That's a completely different thing."

"And doing a great job, spending all night sitting here with me. _I'm_ definitely not going to bed with you."

Terry flashed him a smile. "I could make it worth your while. Just think of it as excellent fodder for a story or two. Sexual experimentation always is."

"I'm not your type," Tripp reminded him. "You like blonds."

"For the moment," Terry agreed, refocusing on his target. This time the blond was staring back, and he grinned. 

Tripp looked back and forth between them. "That's my cue, I think. I'll see you later?"

Terry's smile turned predatory. "Sure." He didn't look up when Tripp left.

*

Terry wrote terrible poetry and knew it, but wrote it anyway because the senior seminar demanded it. He just had to pass, which was why he bothered submitting his own poetry, instead of cribbing something from some poor, practically unknown author. The truth was that despite loving books and words (and, not coincidentally, attractive young writers) he had no talent for writing himself. He knew it and didn't care; the reputation for the thing was actually far more important, to fellow students and professors alike. That was one of the first things college had taught him, the lesson that would stay with him for the rest of his life: faking it got better results with far less work than talent. As a bonus, he always got to shrug off being drunk or high as part of his "creative process." There was no downside that he could see.

He stumbled into the dorm room sometime after two in the morning to find Tripp hunched over his Underwood, a joint in his hand – Terry’s pot, the thieving ass – and a familiar weariness in his eyes. 

"Don't you have a morning class?" Terry asked, practically falling onto his bed.

"Don't _you_?" Tripp rejoined, looking over and raising his eyebrows.

Terry shrugged off his leather jacket and lay back, watching the ceiling spin just a bit at the edges of his vision. "This? This is nothing. I was drunker at that frat thing Friday." He smiled at the memory.

Tripp snorted without turning around. "If I recall correctly, you disappeared after five minutes with one of the brothers and left me sitting by myself in a room full of strangers."

Terry shut his eyes, remembering. "Tony. No, wait." He pinched the bridge of his nose. " _Tobey_. He had two bottles of shitty bourbon in his room." He squinted at Tripp's back. "And if _I_ recall correctly, you were too busy chatting up that freshman girl to even notice me leaving."

"Caroline." Terry could hear Tripp's smile.

"So I take it you're seeing her again? Which _means_ that you don't have anything to complain about." Terry chose to see his deliberate and serial abandonment of Tripp at social gatherings as the best gift he could give him.

A vague noise of assent; Tripp was falling back into his writing, and in a moment would be completely unresponsive.

"I thought you already finished the poem for McCallister," Terry prodded. Tripp wasn't much of a poet, either, which made him happy.

Tripp made a humming noise in his throat. "I did. This is something else."

Terry was on his feet so fast he had to grab onto the wall to hold himself up. "You're writing something real? Let me see."

Tripp covered the paper with his hands. "No. It's not done."

Terry tugged at his shoulder. "Let me _see_. I can help."

Tripp snorted, batting his hands away. "I'll let you see when it's done, Crabs. Not yet."

Terry sighed, plopping back down and kicking off his shoes as the typewriter began clacking away again, starfishing across his bed and dozing to the comforting sound of Tripp writing.

Tripp was a good friend, really, probably better than Terry deserved. The fact that they were no competition for each other romantically meant that they were perfect wingmen, Tripp better and more consistent than Terry. Terry was constantly disappearing into bathrooms and leaving Tripp alone at the bar. It was all part of his image, an image that had more than a few uses: it got him into the senior classes he wanted. More importantly, it got him laid.

Kind of a lot, actually.

*

Rob was nineteen, a young and beautiful soccer player with a fantastic ass. There was something about that kind of person that made Terry pull out all the stops on his (somewhat dubious, according to Tripp) charm. That was what Terry did best. 

Besides, of course, all the amazing sex.

Because the sex _was_ amazing, if Terry said so himself. He counted his head-giving abilities in the top percentile of Berkeley queers. Of course, defending that status took a lot of practice to hone his skills, which he tried to explain rather fuzzily as Rob unlocked his dorm room door and led Terry inside. 

He pushed Rob onto the mattress on the floor, ignoring the tangled (and undoubtedly dirty) sheets. 

Kissing was easy. Lots of gay men Terry had been with refused to kiss, for reasons that were, in the end, utter bullshit. It was one of the reasons Terry insisted on it. 

He let Rob take off his shirt and pressed against him, dropping down and mouthing his cock through his jeans. Terry put his hands all over that lovely ass and got to work.

*

Afterward, he stuck a cigarette into the corner of his mouth and leaned back against the wall, watching the regular rise and fall of Rob's chest. He traced words lightly on the pale skin before getting up carefully and pulling on his shirt. He yanked his jeans on, working the lighter out of his pocket, and lit his cigarette before toeing on his shoes. He glanced back over his shoulder once before slipping out the door.

It was spring and there was the unmistakable scent of earth and rain in the air, the feeling of growing things everywhere, and he walked slowly, watching the few flickering stars he could in the cold silence of campus at night. 

*

New York had always been Terry's ultimate goal. California had been interesting enough, as a beginning, but was never going to be enough to hold him. New York promised, like a magical candy land, to fulfill all of his dreams. Terry wasn't going anywhere, ever again.

The studio apartment was shared with Tripp and a couple of other guys Tripp knew, both of whom seemed to view Terry with the sort of skeptical distaste he'd gotten used to. None of it really mattered. Terry knew, from the moment he'd arrived, that they'd only take him out of the city in a coffin. It was home. He loved it more than he'd loved anything or anyone, and nothing, not even the two frat assholes he had to share a room with, could ruin it.

*

Terry leaned against the table in the breakroom, his eyes barely slits, as the coffee slowly dripped into the pot. He was convinced it was the slowest coffee maker in the world, that Tripp had somehow snuck in right before Terry's first day and done something to it, because Tripp was _at least_ as devious as Terry, even if he would never admitted it.

Terry had managed to get an assistant position at Simon and Schuster, and had spent weeks imagining his future, or at least the most Hollywood version of an editor it was possible to be: to somehow uncover the diamond in the slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts; to champion it in the face of naysayers, including veteran editors; to have it become a _Times_ bestseller, and to have the author say, on television, how much of their success was owed to their tireless editor; to move up the editorial ranks and be presented with the corner office, with views of half the city… to be Max Perkins, indeed.

In between answering phones, typing letters, and fetching coffee, Terry had begun to wonder if it ever really worked like that.

It was the dream, the fairy tale editor's life. No one believed in that sort of thing anymore, he reminded himself nightly, before he'd drunk enough to forget to mock it. In the sweet hours between being drunk enough to lose one's city-wise persona and too drunk to stagger home, he would pay the bill and leave the dark cave of the bar, weaving homeward over dirty slush and broken glass. 

It was always later, very late, when Terry would come home drunk and talk to Tripp, who always had the Underwood out, leaving half-finished character sketches and first chapters lying about. 

Terry picked up one of them, flipping through the pages carefully. "This… is not terrible."

"Gee, thanks Crabs," Tripp said without looking up. Terry sometimes wondered if he'd taught Tripp how to be sarcastic or if it had been the other way around.

"You should finish it."

"I've got a new thing to work on."

Terry dropped the pages and went to stand behind Tripp, resting his chin on his shoulder and reading quickly. "What's with the river?"

"Symbolism. You remember what symbolism is?"

Terry made a face at him, not that Tripp could see it. " _Obviously_. I am a highly respected member of the Simon and Schuster publishing house, you know."

"I know you answer the phone," Tripp pointed out. "Is that what highly respected members do?"

Terry waved a hand at him. "Just temporarily. Eventually they'll recognize my genius and promote me. That's how these things work."

"The only genius you've ever had was in your pants, and it's probably not a good idea to fuck your way up the ladder."

Terry smirked. "I think it's an excellent idea, actually."

Tripp turned to look at him. "Really? I've seen some of your senior editors. I'm not sure a slight raise would be worth that."

"I didn't say it would be easy. You're the one who always said I needed to understand what hard work was."

Tripp didn't respond, just turned back to the typewriter. Terry knew he was probably rolling his eyes and grinned at his back. Eventually Tripp's typing sped up, as he became engrossed once again in his manuscript. Terry sat in one of the other kitchen chairs, leaning back and lighting a cigarette. The city was there, around him, breathing and alive. Terry was home, and happy, and he wouldn't change a thing. Everything was going to come together. He knew it.


End file.
